I still remember the exact place I was standing and the exact moment as a young child that I first heard the name of an adventurous-sounding machine called ‘Land Rover’, visualizing the scenes as I heard tales of traversing difficult terrain in deepest Africa where few vehicles could go and few sojourners would venture.
In the early 1950’s to late 1960’s my grandparents helped manage a mission farm and school in Angola, Missão de Boas Novas Chitau (no relation to any current entities by such name), which was established in the 1920’s. Students would come from surrounding villages to learn academics, scripture, farming, and domestic skills. In addition to teaching, grandpa constructed a number of buildings and assisted local assembly leaders in the surrounding villages. Grandma set up a clinic and trained a nurse to assist with running it and also created a domestic school for older girls who had not been able to attend school, teaching them to read as well as knit, sew, cook, and other useful skills.
During the dry season they travelled around the region, setting up camp and living out of the back of the Series 2a 109″ to deliver supplies and bring a mobile clinic to remote villages. The vehicle also served as an ambulance, saving many lives by travelling 200km to the nearest hospital, which could take up to nine hours in the rainy season over almost impassable roads that “only a Rover could love“.
The Land Rover was the obvious and most capable means of transport for the African countryside, however it was not the first vehicle they drove on those challenging back roads. Initially they had an old and very tired 1939 GMC truck. Once while traveling between villages one of the passengers in the back noticed that it looked like something was dragging under the vehicle, making a deep line in the dirt track. They stopped to inspect and discovered that one of the tie rods had fallen off and it took nearly a mile of walking back before they found the part laying in the road. Providentially the vehicle had not gone out of control without the critical steering component and after some repairs the journey continued.
When the old GMC truck finally gave up a neighbour in a nearby town donated their old vehicle to the cause, however it was a Rambler station wagon, two-wheel drive like the GMC but not even being a truck it was very poorly suited for the country and was almost completely useless in the wet season on roads that were impassable for anything two wheel drive, let alone a car. After this largely unsuccessful attempt, the Land Rover Series 2a is remembered as a wonderful upgrade and a welcome change that saved countless hours of travel–and many hours of being stuck! Legend has it that grandpa even got it up to 60mph on a relatively smooth and level road near a larger city–once.
There are other circulating stories of those days, some involving snakes of various types and sizes, hunting for wild fruits, making things out of bamboo or building a dugout canoe, or the times when the family would move out for a couple days when army ants would come through the house eating everything that was left behind–dead or alive, and the kids would use blowtorches to try and divert their path around the hen house. One time a leopard got into the sheep shed and killed seventeen of the sheep and their faithful guard dog, requiring grandpa to get creative and set a clever trap for the returning intruder the next night.
Little is known or recorded of what became of the deep green Series 2a 109″ with pickup cab, tropical roof, and 3/4 canvas hood after the early 1970’s but ABR-09-62 may still be out there to this day, working as hard as ever – if anyone has seen it, please send photos and a vehicle number! One of the vehicle’s distinguishing marks was that grandpa, born in Scotland, had felt compelled to paint grey rectangles on the front of the wings to cover something that the previous owner, an Irishman, had painted on them.
Small bits of references that may be useful for family and those that know them:
the fields: august-1953.pdf
the fields: january-1958.pdf
the fields: september-1958.pdf
the fields: december-1958.pdf
fields mph: 1963-fields-mph.pdf
fields mph: 1967-mph.pdf
the fields: the-fields-1967.pdf
the fields: Fields_1938_43.pdf
The Good News
“Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain.
For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Peter, then to the twelve.” 1 Corinthians 15:1-5
“Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent, because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead.” Acts 17:30-31
Yesu Kristu ka pongoloka. Ndeci a kala hẽla haico a kala etali, kuenda haico a kala oloneke vi enda ño-o hũ, ka vi pui.
Heb 13:8, Umbundu
(directly translated: “Jesus Christ neva change. Da same way he stay yesterday is da way he stay today and da way he stay in da days that go o––n and on and on without end.”)